Reviewing Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment (NYSE:CHMI) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM)

Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment (NYSE:CHMI) and Iron Mountain (NYSE:IRM) are both finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, risk and institutional ownership.

Profitability

This table compares Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment and Iron Mountain’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment	-69.00%	19.65%	1.99%
Iron Mountain	5.44%	178.02%	3.79%

Volatility and Risk

Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment has a beta of 1.46, meaning that its share price is 46% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Iron Mountain has a beta of 0.94, meaning that its share price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

18.5% of Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 80.1% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.2% of Iron Mountain shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment pays an annual dividend of $0.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 18.8%. Iron Mountain pays an annual dividend of $2.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.5%. Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment pays out -35.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Iron Mountain pays out 412.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Iron Mountain has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment and Iron Mountain, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment	0	0	2	0	3.00
Iron Mountain	1	0	4	0	2.60

Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment presently has a consensus target price of $5.00, suggesting a potential upside of 56.25%. Iron Mountain has a consensus target price of $73.80, suggesting a potential downside of 1.22%. Given Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment is more favorable than Iron Mountain.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment and Iron Mountain’s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment	$49.99 million	1.92	-$34.79 million	($1.70)	-1.88
Iron Mountain	$5.48 billion	3.98	$184.23 million	$0.63	118.59

Iron Mountain has higher revenue and earnings than Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment. Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Iron Mountain, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Iron Mountain beats Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment on 11 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment

Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation, a residential real estate finance company, acquires, invests in, and manages residential mortgage assets in the United States. The company operates through Investments in RMBS (residential mortgage-backed securities) and Investments in Servicing Related Assets segments. Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation qualifies as a real estate investment trust for federal income tax purposes. The company generally would not be subject to federal corporate income taxes if it distributes at least 90% of its taxable income to its stockholders. Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation was incorporated in 2012 and is based in Farmingdale, New Jersey.

About Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) is a global leader in information management services. Founded in 1951 and trusted by more than 240,000 customers worldwide, Iron Mountain serves to protect and elevate the power of our customers' work. Through a range of offerings including digital transformation, data centers, secure records storage, information management, asset lifecycle management, secure destruction and art storage and logistics, Iron Mountain helps businesses bring light to their dark data, enabling customers to unlock value and intelligence from their stored digital and physical assets at speed and with security, while helping them meet their environmental goals.